Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner
Chapter 361 - 361: Rematch, Widow vs Noah

A makeshift holding area fell into tense silence, the sound of jury-rigged equipment and Bruce's labored breathing the only sounds echoing through the converted storage facility.

What had once been a cargo bay for mining equipment now served as an impromptu detention center, hastily repurposed with salvaged restraint systems and monitoring devices.

This entire facility turned bunker was Sirius prime's biggest mining operations site.

At one end, the Widow remained motionless for several heartbeats, her gaze fixed on displays cobbled together from various sources, showing the approaching human vessels.

"Such a fascinating species," she mused, her voice carrying that same maternal tone that had preceded their last encounter. "Throwing more lives into the grinder, as if quantity could somehow overcome quality."

Noah tested his restraints one final time, feeling the raw power coursing through his enhanced physiology. The bonds that had held him before were like spider's silk now—he could snap them without conscious effort.

"You know," Noah said conversationally, "I've been thinking about our last dance."

The Widow's head turned slowly, intelligent eyes studying him with renewed interest. "Oh? And what profound insights has my wayward child reached while dangling in his chair?"

"I was wondering if you're actually going to fight me this time, or spend another hour running from my blade."

The temperature in the storage bay seemed to drop several degrees. The Widow's elegant features shifted subtly, and for the first time, there was a flicker of something dangerous beneath her maternal facade.

"Careful, precious," she said, rising from her observation position with fluid grace. "Children who speak out of turn require firmer correction."

"Then correct me," Noah replied simply, his restraints beginning to smoke as his strength tested their limits.

The restraints exploded.

Noah's enhanced physiology tore through the bonds like they were tissue paper, evolved strength reducing salvaged alien metallurgy to scattered fragments. He was moving before the debris hit the ground, his hand extending toward empty air as system notifications blazed across his vision.

[VOID STORAGE ACCESSED]

[KNIGHT'S GRACE EQUIPPED]

[VOID STRIDERS EQUIPPED]

[EXCALIBURN EQUIPPED]

Obsidian armor materialized around his frame in flowing streams of liquid shadow, the Knight's Grace adapting to his enhanced body with perfect precision. The Void Striders wrapped around his feet like living darkness, and Excaliburn sang into existence in his grip—the longsword's void edge crackling with reality-ending power.

The transformation took less than two seconds.

The Widow's eyes showed mild interest—not fear, but the pleased attention of a teacher whose student had learned a new trick. She remembered that blade from their last encounter, remembered how carefully she'd had to avoid its edge.

"How wonderful," she said with genuine delight. "My boy is growing up."

She moved.

Twenty feet vanished in the space between heartbeats. Her fist materialized inches from Noah's solar plexus, the air itself screaming as it was displaced by her strike. The sound barrier didn't just break—it shattered into fragments that sent shockwaves through the storage bay.

Noah twisted. The punch grazed his ribs, and two tons of reinforcement beam behind him crumpled like origami. Sparks cascaded around them as electrical systems overloaded from the displacement alone.

But she was already flowing into her next attack. Her left hand swept toward his throat, fingers rigid as steel blades. Noah ducked, feeling the air split above his head, and drove Excaliburn upward in a rising cut that would have bisected her from hip to shoulder.

She bent backward. Her spine curved at angles that defied human anatomy, the void blade passing so close that purple energy crackled across her chest plate. She completed the impossible arch into a handspring, her feet whipping toward his face with bone-crushing force.

Noah caught her ankle. His grip closed like a steel trap, and he pivoted, using her momentum to slam her into a stack of mining equipment with tremendous force.

The three-ton ore processor didn't just slide—it exploded backward across the floor, its armored casing cracking like an eggshell. The impact crater in the wall showed exactly how much force had been transferred through the Widow's body.

She rolled with the collision, coming up in a crouch thirty feet away. Where his fingers had gripped her ankle, stress fractures spider-webbed through the alien armor.

"Stronger," she observed with maternal approval. "Much stronger. But strength without wisdom—"

The storage bay groaned around them. What had been hastily converted detention space was never designed for this level of violence. Support beams bent like wire, salvaged equipment toppled like dominoes, and jury-rigged systems sparked and died.

But Noah began to notice the pattern. Every time she moved, every angle she chose, was calculated to keep maximum distance from his blade. She was fighting defensively, reactively—the complete opposite of their first encounter.

The next time she launched into another hit-and-run attack, Noah was ready. Instead of trying to counter her strikes, he blinked through the void.

He materialized directly behind her, Excaliburn already in motion. The thrust would have taken her through the spine, but she somehow sensed his position and threw herself forward, rolling across the floor as the void blade carved through empty air.

"Clever," she said, coming up in a crouch thirty feet away. "But teleportation won't help you if you can't land a strike."

"Won't I?" Noah asked, raising Excaliburn in a two-handed grip.

The longsword erupted with void energy so intense it bent light around the blade. Reality itself seemed to recoil from the concentrated annihilation effect, the air shimmering as quantum foam boiled under the strain.

[NULL STRIKE ACTIVATED - MAXIMUM YIELD]

Noah brought the weapon down in a devastating overhead arc—not aimed at the Widow, but at the facility's load-bearing supports.

The null strike carved through reinforced alien metallurgy like it was made of shadows. Support columns, wall joints, ceiling anchors—everything the blade touched simply ceased to exist. The storage facility began to collapse in on itself, tons of debris raining down as the improvised structure lost integrity.

The Widow leaped backward, her reflexes carrying her clear of the worst falling wreckage. But Noah was already moving, sprinting through the collapsing architecture. The Void Striders carried him up tumbling walls and across falling debris with impossible agility.

They burst through what had been the storage bay's ceiling into a vast mining complex—the facility's main processing center. Massive conveyor systems stretched across multiple levels, designed to move tons of extracted ore through various refinement stages. Catwalks and service platforms created a three-dimensional maze of metal and machinery, all of it still running despite the chaos below.

The Widow landed gracefully on a conveyor belt fifty feet away, her predatory poise undiminished by the change in terrain. Around them, the mining facility's automated systems continued their work, oblivious to the violence about to unfold.

"Clever boy," she said, but her tone was different now—calculating rather than maternal. "But more space just means more room for me to avoid that blade."

"We'll see," Noah replied, already moving.

What followed was a three-dimensional chase through the processing facility. The Widow moved like liquid mercury, flowing across catwalks and machinery with inhuman grace. But every time Noah closed distance, she was gone, using the complex's industrial maze to stay just beyond Excaliburn's reach.

She would dart in for lightning-fast strikes—claws raking across his armor, her tail lashing at his legs—but the moment he turned to respond, she was already retreating, putting obstacles and distance between them.

Noah began to understand. This wasn't the same creature who had overwhelmed him through raw dominance in their first encounter. She was fighting like her life depended on staying away from his weapon.

Because it did.

The next time she came in for a hit-and-run attack, Noah was ready. As her claws swept toward his throat, he didn't try to counter. Instead, he grabbed her wrist with his free hand.

The Widow's eyes went wide with genuine alarm. She immediately twisted, using every ounce of her inhuman flexibility to break the grip before Excaliburn could follow up. Her tail wrapped around a support beam, giving her the leverage to wrench free and launch herself away.

But for that split second, Noah had felt her strength. Enhanced as he was now, she was still physically superior. But the psychological advantage had completely shifted.

"You're terrified," he realized aloud.

The Widow landed on a processing platform forty feet away, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. "Cautious," she corrected again, but there was no hiding the truth now.

"No," Noah said, advancing across a conveyor belt with measured steps. "Terrified. Because you know that blade doesn't just hurt you—it erases you. Permanently."

Her composure cracked slightly. "You think understanding changes anything? You think fear makes me weak?"

"I think," Noah said, leaping to a higher platform and forcing her to retreat again, "that you're going to run out of places to hide."

The chase continued across multiple levels of the processing facility. They fought through ore sorters and crushing mechanisms, their battle turning precision machinery into twisted wreckage. But the pattern remained consistent—she struck and withdrew, never allowing him to capitalize on his devastating weapon advantage.

Until Noah changed tactics entirely.

Instead of pursuing her directly, he began systematically destroying the facility's mobility options. Every catwalk she used, every support beam that gave her high ground, every conveyor that offered rapid transit—Excaliburn carved through them all with casual precision.

The Widow found herself forced lower and lower, her maneuvering options steadily decreasing as Noah demolished the three-dimensional battlefield around them.

"Running out of room," he observed, standing on one of the few remaining intact platforms.

Below, the Widow crouched on a rapidly moving conveyor belt, her options limited to the narrow confines of the remaining machinery. Her predatory grace was undiminished, but for the first time, she looked trapped.

"This changes nothing," she snarled, but her voice carried a note of desperation that hadn't been there before.

"Doesn't it?" Noah asked.

He leaped down to her level, Excaliburn trailing void energy as he descended. The Widow had nowhere to retreat—the platform behind her had been severed, the catwalks above destroyed, the conveyor ahead leading directly into a massive crusher.

For the first time in their encounter, she was forced to meet him head-on.

The collision was explosive. Her claws met Excaliburn's crossguard in a shower of sparks, the impact creating a shockwave that buckled the conveyor belt beneath them. But she couldn't maintain the bind—not when every moment of contact risked the void edge finding her flesh.

She disengaged and rolled backward, but Noah pursued relentlessly. His blade carved through the air where she'd been, each strike forcing her into increasingly desperate evasions.

A thrust toward her heart forced her to contort sideways. A diagonal cut across her torso made her bend backward at impossible angles. An overhead strike targeting her skull required her to throw herself prone, rolling between his legs.

But each evasion carried her closer to the crusher at the conveyor's end. The massive machinery loomed ahead, its grinding mechanism designed to reduce ore chunks to powder. The sound was deafening, the danger absolute.

The Widow glanced back at the approaching crusher, then forward at Noah's advancing form. For the first time in their battle, genuine panic flickered across her features.

"Nowhere left to run," Noah said, raising Excaliburn for what he intended to be the final exchange.

The Widow's response was pure, desperate fury. She launched herself directly at him, abandoning all caution in a last-ditch assault. Her claws swept toward his throat, her tail whipped toward his spine, every weapon at her disposal committed to ending this before the crusher could claim them both.

But desperation made her predictable. Noah had been waiting for this moment—when fear would override her tactical brilliance and force her into the direct confrontation she'd been avoiding.

He stepped into her attack, accepting her claws across his armored chest, and drove Excaliburn forward in a perfect thrust.

The Widow twisted at the last possible moment, the void blade passing inches from her heart. But her evasion carried her backward—directly toward the massive crusher that had been grinding steadily behind her.

Her eyes went wide as she realized her mistake. The machinery's grinding mechanism was less than five feet away, its massive jaws designed to reduce ore chunks to powder. The sound was deafening, the danger absolute.

She spun toward the crusher, planting her feet to stop her backward momentum, but Noah was already following up. His horizontal slash forced her to bend backward, her spine arching impossibly to avoid the void edge.

The evasion carried her directly into the crusher's feed mechanism.

The Widow's scream was cut short as tons of crushing force closed around her. The machinery didn't even slow—it had been designed to process materials far harder than flesh and bone. There was a brief grinding sound, then nothing.

Noah stood alone on the moving conveyor, Excaliburn's void edge still crackling with residual energy. The crusher continued its mechanical operation, having processed its unexpected material without missing a beat.